Say youâ€™re talking to someone and, without provocation or good reason, that person said something insulting about a close friend of yours. What would you do?

Tell your friend about it

Keep mum

Agree

If the person bad-mouthing your friend is someone youâ€™ve been obsessing on since 1st grade, thereâ€™s a good chance youâ€™ll pick 3. You pick 2 most probably when youâ€™re deaf-mute or brain-dead. Otherwise, almost all of us would pick 1.

The question is this: should we?

â€œOf course! That person is bad-mouthing my friend. My friend has a right to know about it!â€

True or False?

TRUE. Your friend has a right to know about any axe to grind anyone has about him/her.

But guess what? YOU donâ€™t have a right to tell him/her about it.

â€œWhat??? OF COURSE I do! That person is my bestest friend!â€

No, you donâ€™t. Being the personâ€™s best friend doesnâ€™t give you the right to be his eyes/ears/mouth/whatever.

Weird? Not at all. When someone bad-mouths your friend and you tell your friend about it, what do you expect to accomplish? You want your friend to know, expecting him/her to be angry. In that alone you already have the intent to worsen the situation. What else do you think would happen? If weâ€™re all lucky, your friend would keep quiet and just hold it as a passive grudge. He/she may never do something about it, but at the same time he/she would never talk to that person again. IF WEâ€™RE LUCKY.

Chances are there will be a confrontation. Worse, it will come down Jerry-Springer style.

From bad to worse, yes?

But then, your friend does have a right to know if anyoneâ€™s talking ill about them. But should you be the one to be the avenue of revelation? NO. THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. This is between the back-stabber and the back-stabbee. Why do you think itâ€™s so bad to back-stab? Having derogatory words flying out uncontrollably is just half of the evil. The other half is the back-stabber depriving your friend his/her right to be aware of something he/she should be aware of. Itâ€™s your friendâ€™s business to know about this. It is not, however, your business to be the one to tell him/her.

Let me put it this way. When a person bad-mouths another, the transgression of back-stabbing is his/hers to answer to. But it is not your responsibility to make sure your friend knows about it. On the contrary, if you tell your friend about it, you’re answerable for the sin of being a gossiper (remember that gossip doesnâ€™t necessarily mean false, it could also mean the conveyance of any bad thought or message for the purpose of promoting strife) and a trouble-maker. And also for sticking your nose into something where it doesnâ€™t belong.

This is between the two of them. Itâ€™s none of your business.

You want to stick it out for your friend? Stand up to that back-stabber and say it to his/her face that he/sheâ€™s wrong. Tell him that your friend is way out of his/her league, and that he/she should stop being a gutless pansy and take it up with your friend personally. Let that person know whoâ€™s the lesser human being.

Last Friday wifey and I were at Megamall to have my NBI clearance renewed for my new job.Â The day was a little horrendous, with the mall packed with a lot more people than usual because of the 3-day sale.Â Anyways, having accomplished our mission, Joy and I decided to stroll around a bit, and one of the stores we visited was Comic Quest.Â Now I haven’t been buying comic books for more than a year now, ever since those bigwigs at DC Comics opted to imitate Marvel by turning their superheroes into drama queens while introducing all-new inconsistencies to continuity (really pissed me off).Â But hey, all back-issues were 50% off.Â One of the books I picked up was Justice League of America #0.

There was one thing that Superman said there that immediately drew my attention:

“As in any social setting, your friends are the ones you consider your equals.Â But your best friends — your closest friends — are the ones you consider your betters.”

One of the marks of a good writer (in this case Brad Meltzer, who I still call a good writer despite my hating his work with Identity Crisis) is being insightful enough to recognize the more subtle truths in life that most of us mere mortals overlook or totally miss out on.Â I reflected upon this quote and realized just how true it is for me.Â That whenever I look or think of my closest friends, the very first things I see are the ways they are better than me.Â To illustrate:

Rollee, best friend since high school – the better artist

Oyee, best friend since high school – the more streetsmart, the better dresser

Rachel, UCPB best friend – the better judge of character

Archie, UCPB best friend – the better programmer

Cathy – the better organizer

Shy – the better singer, the (much) more physically fit (but them, almost all of them are)

Mike – the better housekeeper, the more disciplined

Markku – the better bachelor (meaning he’s making much better use of his time than I ever did when I was single)

And of course, my best friend in the whole world, my wife, JoyÂ – the more patient, the emotionally stronger, better money handler, more polite, more likeable, more kindhearted — in a nutshell, the all-around better person.

(and no, we haven’t been fighting so the above weren’t some lame excuse so I could avoid being outside-the-kulambo =p )

It’s a double-edged sword, actually.Â It is always good to consider others better than you.Â And when it comes to closest friends, I realized that thinking of them as my betters comes naturally.Â Why?Â Let’s face it, wanting to be someone’s close friend means there’s something about someone that we like very much, and more often than not this is a something that we don’t have in ourselves.Â Simplifying, your closest friends become your idols of some sort because you admire them for the things they have, or do, that you don’t, or couldn’t.

The downside: idolizing your close friends too much could be harmful.Â Two reasons:

(1) No matter how good a personÂ a best friend is, he/she could still let us down.Â They’re humans, after all, and therefore are as prone to human mistakes just like you and I.Â Only Jesus, our best friend in the universe (even though we neglect to acknowledge Him as such) could never let us down.Â So try to avoid looking at your closest friends asÂ the reason for your existence.

(2) Sometimes putting someone on the pedestal involves putting ourselves down, i.e. it makes us feel inferior, and therefore could lead us into a gnawing sense of insecurity.Â Which really shouldn’t be.Â We may automatically see our best friends are our betters, but we must also remember that the attitude is more than likely reciprocal — they also see us as our betters one way or another.

I used to have a friend at my former work place.Â And I really like her.Â In fact, everyone likes her.Â If ever the term “amiability incarnate” ever applied to one person, it’s a safe bet that it’s her.Â We used to be close, yeah.Â Certain events kind of conspired that made it a little awkward for us to talk openly, but I thought that’s okay.Â At least, I thought,Â I could still call on the friendship whenever the need arises again, or if ever the air gets cleared between myself and one of her friends.

Turns out that’s already impossible.Â I thought the only reason we haven’t been speaking the last few months is awkwardness.Â But it isn’t.Â She’s actually mad at me.Â Extremely.

Why?

Someone seems to have told her that I have been spreading some very unpleasant things about her to everyone.

What.Â The.Â Fuck.

Yes, this situation is so screwed it merits a full and uncensored F word.

Now what kind of depraved, demented, sanity-impaired sorry excuse for a human being would invent such a totally baseless, pointless, bullshitty and out-of-thin-air lie, and then actually tell it to her?Â How could someone be so Satan-fixated?

That lie completely ruined everything.Â It’s no different from detonating a nuclear bomb between me and that friend of mine, decimating everything between us.

You know, I’m into boxing.Â Only been at it for two months so far so I’m not very good yet.Â Still, my first pair of gloves didn’t last three weeks.Â My trainer said I pack a powerful punch.

I’d hate to have to use that on the person who told that lie about me.

Missed church again this Sunday, just got off Gtalk with a friend who talked to me about venting.

Pouring out grievances, hurts and frustrations.Â That venting.Â Not the largest Frapuccino size that Starbucks sells.

He said he “made the mistake” of venting his disappointments about a person at work to his friends, which had me as something of a loss.Â Why did he consider it as a mistake, I asked?Â Well, it’s because his friends to whom he vented told that person about what he said.

“What the f…”

(Yes, that “f…” leads exactly to what you think it leads to.Â I’m not really predisposed to expletives, but extremely retarded situations like this tend to bring out the worst in me)

Does anyone still know what it means to be a confidante?

I’m not trying to act self-righteous, but when friends approach me to talk about things that bother or frustrate them, I try to make sure that whatever they tell me stays with me alone.Â It stops here and goes no further.Â I don’t know about other people, but for me that’s what it means to confide.Â “Confide” obviouslyÂ has the same etymology as the words “confidence” and “confidential”.Â To pour out one’s feelings to someone he could trust to keep it a secret.Â Because, well, venting normally happens at the height of a person’s emotions, and more often than not, in situations like this words not normally uttered when a person is calm get unleashed almost uncontrollably.Â But that’s fine, it’s not backstabbing or spreading harmful gossip (unless the person talks to a variety of people with the explicit intention to ruin someone’s name).Â The person just needs to release his bottled up feelings.

But more importantly, when a person confides, he bares his innermost feelings, and therefore becomes completely vulnerable to whatever negative opinions we might have about him as a result.Â So in a manner of speaking, confiding also includes a certain degree of risk: would we be able to accept this person after getting a glimpse of his deepest and most profound feelings?Â The fact that he opened up means he trusts us to be able to do that, to accept him for who he is.Â That’s what friends are for, right?

So if he trusts us enough to reveal his secrets or pour out his emotions, it follows that the only people who should know about what he has to say are those whom he has chosen to tell them to.Â The people whom he trusts.Â As for the others, they shouldn’t.Â They’re not entitled to such information.Â It’s your friend’s secret, and only he has the right to disclose it to anyone he chooses.Â Not you.Â You follow?

You should be honored if you (either alone or as part of an inner circle of confidantes) are chosen by a friend to listen to his hurts.Â That means he trusts you, that at some point in your friendship you have earned his confidence and proven yourself to be trustworthy.Â But with great trust comes great responsibility.Â Anything imparted to you at the height of a friend’s emotions is understood to be told in confidence.Â It should be kept within the two (or group) of you.Â A SECRET.

ConveyingÂ anything expressed in confidenceÂ by someone to another (whether the subject of that person’s venting or anyone else) doesn’t make you anything but one: UNTRUSTWORTHY.Â Unfit to keep a secret.Â A loudmouth.

Trust is a basic building block of friendship.Â Let’s all try to be worthy of being trusted by our friends.

Okay, just wanna ask you guys to give meÂ a little bit of slack here because it’s not going to be easy to say this.Â But I have to.

Right now I’m watching the replay of American Idol: Idol Gives Back, a 2-hour special AI show dedicated to charity.Â It’s wonderful watching the show, and I often remarked that it’s good that American Idol is giving back after the phenomenal success it enjoyed in its last 6 seasons so far.Â The show itself is star-studded.Â And okay, people who know me well could tell you that I couldn’t care less if every celebrity in Hollywood participated in the show – if there’s one thing that I’m not, it’s star-struck.Â But I did love how different personalities with contrasting backgrounds got together for one noble common cause.Â Like, can you imagine Bono, Jack Black, Josh Groban, Ewan McGregor, Seal, Celine Dion, Homer Simpson (yeah, really), Annie Lennox, Rob LoweÂ and Madonna in one show?Â Okay, you probably could, but it still doesn’t happen much.

The program was touching and at times, heart-wrenching, and only someone with a certified heart of granite (like someone I know) wouldn’t be moved by all those stories of children and HIV-positive folks who desperately need our help.Â Ellen Degenres put it best.Â “This is ridiculous.Â We should do something.”Â And yeah, I agree.Â I wish there was some way I could do to help.

Hehe, wishing for ways to help poor African HIV-positive kids when I had the chance to do the exact same thing with our local homeless children… and I didn’t.

I’m talking about the Christmas program SVI prepared for orphan kids in place of the company Christmas party.Â I still remember the argument with Hana becauseÂ I wanted to hold a Christmas party for the staff, insisting that ‘charity work is good and all, but the Christmas party is supposedly the reward for us employeesÂ for toilingÂ hard the entire year.Â We deserve to have that party, why give it to someone else?’

Why give it to someone else?Â It’s like asking why give to Gawad Kalinga that 50 pesos you were reserving for a strawberry milkshake.

Now that I think about it, I want to hit myself on the head with a hammer.

Especially when recalling how much fun the SVI volunteers had in participating in the activity.Â I wanted a party for the employees?Â Well, making orphaned kids happy – even for onlyÂ a few hours – rates on the fun meter just as much as any otherÂ party.Â And it’s more worthwhile because we get to help people.

Well, since the charity event won out over a clubhouse party, in the end I did decide to acquiesce and volunteer to help out too, if at least to make myself less of an ass.Â But it would have meant something if I’d actually made it

“Vehicles will often come into conflict with other vehicles because their intended courses of travel intersect, and thus interfere with each other’s routes. The general principle that establishes who has the right to go first is called “right of way”, or “priority”. It establishes who has the right to use the conflicting part of the road and who has to wait until the other driver does so.”

You know what they are, don’t you?Â Â If not (and I do hope you don’t have a driver’s license if this is the case), I’m giving some examples of right-of-way rules:

1) When two cars reach an intersection at the same time, the one on the left yields to the one on the right,

2) In roundabout roads, a.k.a. rotundas, those who are already in the road yield the right of way to those who are just entering it,

3) Intersection again, but this time three vehicles get to it at the same time.Â The “right-side” rule no longer applies.Â Instead, the two cars who are facing opposite each other have priority over the third.

Â There’s actually a lot more, but this post isn’t a tutorial on basic right-of-way rules.Â At any rate, no matter what the rules are or how different they are from one country to the next, there’s an instruction common to all countries:

DO NOT INSIST ON YOUR RIGHT OF WAY.

Which makes a lot of sense, really.Â What if you’re against a drunk driver who couldn’t see you if your plate number is five inches away from his face?Â Insisting on your right-of-way would almost certainly end in disaster, right?

Sadly, though, as a long-time observer of traffic in Metro Manila, I could say without reservation that the “not insisting on your right-of-way” policy doesn’t apply here.Â Why?Â Two reasons:

1) The few who have been schooled on the right-of-way rule usually only remember the “do not insist” part.Â Of course we would, that’s an instant loophole to get our way of the highway.Â Since you’re not supposed to insist on your ROW, the other motorist would expect you to do this and therefore try to get one up over you.Â How many timesÂ have IÂ seen this happen: running full throttle into an intersection to get the better of those motorists who looked first before proceeding; turning left on unprotected intersections without regard to oncoming traffic; merging into traffic without regard to motorists who have merged in before you.Â And when accidents do happen, the one who’d be adjudge at fault is not the one who proceeded without a right-of-way, but rather the one who insisted on his.Â Maybe in the Philippines, we should be required to insist on our right-of-way, because the opposite is turning out to be ridiculous.Â Like, “Officer, it’s his fault because he insisted on his right of way!” Â How stupid is that?

2) Second reason much simpler.Â As evidenced by the way drivers behave on the road, an estimated 6 out of 10 drivers do not know what a right-of-way is.Â Â Two out of 10 do not care.Â And 1.9 out of 10 think they’re always right.

I know someone who rear-ended me while I’m at full stop, and she still thinks it’s my fault.

A plot element that could be killed by common sense is a bad plot element. Consider the following in a movie I glimpsed: pompous rich girl on her way to Baguio, driven by a chauffeur in a brand new Nissan Xtrail. The car broke down in mid-trip – a plot element intended to cross the rich girl’s path with the leading man of the story. The driver said the car broke down because of a ruptured fuel line.

What is wrong with this picture? It’s a brand new car. Fuel lines, oil conduits or water hoses don’t just rupture in brand new cars, especially in luxury models like the Xterra (with leather seats to boot). The only way for this to have happened is if the part is defective coming out of the dealer – in which case the damage would have manifested way before the point of it being even considered for use in a trip to Baguio; or someone intentionally sliced it – a major plot element in itself which should have been shown to the audience.

Problem: the writer didn’t think this plot element out, maybe because he/she is too focused on the scene where the girl and her leading man would meet as a result of her needing to take public transport. Either the writer forgot, or worse, didn’t know from the start (in which case the person has no business writing stories) that fiction writing falls under the category of creative writing because he/she needs to be creative, to at least avoid sudden and unpleasant show-stoppers on the audience’s suspension of disbelief. The writer would have done much better if he wrote, for example, a jeepney clipping the Xtrail’s fender (which happens quite a lot). But no. “Paano sila magkakakilala? Ah, masisiraan siya ng kotse.” To hell with believability.

A story’s main power has been and will always be in its believability. You take that away, you’re left feeling robbed with a contrived story that accomplishes nothing but insult your intelligence.

If I’d insist on going boxing.Â Yeah yeah, there’s something to be said about consistency (and I learned a hard lesson after skipping two sessions and going on the third so tired that I only managed three rounds of mitts), but not even Manny Paquiao dives into the grit after an all-nighter.Â Haven’t slept a wink yet(again), so if I’m going to box, I might asÂ well play basketballÂ with cinderblocks attached to my legs.Â And my legs are heavy enough as they are… Huhuhu…

Random thoughts again:

Nice to hear strangers laughing at my jokes.Â Last Saturday at the Subic Tiger Safari, while checking out the crocodile pool I called our tour guide and asked if any of those crocs are running for congress, bwahahaha (gets nyo)?

You owe it to yourself to try.Â Even if failure is an almost certainty, it’s better to have tried and failed than chicken out and thenÂ look back and wonder what would have happened if you tried.Â The shame is not in failure, but in cowardice.

I’d have to be the most egotistical ass in the world if a girl offered friendship and I suspect in return that she wanted more from me, just because I’m the spitting image of Justin Hartley (which I’m not, not by a parsec, but hypothetically speaking…)

Was looking at the Friendster photosÂ of a former friend, and in between my snickers for observing that she and her boyfriend don’t look good together and cringing to an attack of sheer corniness at the sight of the pic of theirÂ intertwined hands, I just realized that I haven’t really forgiven herÂ yet.Â I want to, really.Â Â This chip onÂ my shoulder is baggage I could certainly do without.Â But maybe it’s true that some offenses are hard to forgive unless the offender explicitly says sorry.Â But I doubt she would…

I admit to planning on watching some movies just to criticize them.Â Haven’t gotten around to lambasting X-Men 3 (which someÂ described was the best movie of 2006 – please!Â It’s the worst X-Men movie, fer cryin’ out loud!) yet.Â Now there’s Frank Miller’s “300” that I have to work on as well.

Going out of my comfort zone.Â Not something I’m looking forward to, but it is something that I need to do.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is chock-full of cut-scenes, which is turning out to be a bad thing because it’s starting to get boring.Â On the other hand, when I do get into a fight, the enemies seem to come at me endlessly!Â Luckily, I have my AR Max, hehehe.

I might hold another grand videoke session at home.Â It’s just a little sad that I couldn’t expectÂ some of the same people I invited last year to come.Â Oh well…

I need a new pair of boxing gloves…

… Or maybe I should upgrade to freeform martial arts…

NBA 2K7 – the PS2 game: I HAVE CREATED A MONSTER!Â A pair of them, actually.Â Combine Dwyane Wade with a full 99 5’9″ point guard created player (whose name you probably know already, hwehwehwe) and you get the deadliest backcourtÂ tandem professional basketball has ever seen!Â Too bad it’s just a fantasy (oh-woh-woh-woh)

Notwhitstanding my cat Dang’s excessive feistiness, I just realized she’s one hell of a pretty cat.Â If she were human, she’d be Angel Locsin =p

And last but not the least (since the original post was written 3/28),Â Belated Happy Birthday, Trisha 😉

Five-day leave, plus a normal two-day weekend.Â Then come to work for two days.Â Then another five-day break (three holidays sandwiching the weekend).Â This taught me that it’s possible to get too much vacation time, and I realized this when I went out tonight to pick up my wife at her weekly badminton game – getting out in the open could be such a rush after all!Â There wasn’t anything new, it just happened that during the last loooong weekend I got cooped up in the house and did nothing but flex my abs (by stuffing it with food, hehehe), cuddle with the PS2 and hit the online jungle.Â So bored I actually planned to crash at Mike’s place with Markku and the HR ladies +1 (what +1?Â ask Markku, hehehe).Â Alas, none of them would consent, for various reasons.

So what else did I do during this lengthy break?Â My three most favorite pasttimes, of course.Â Think, mull, and contemplate.Â And here’s what I reasoned:

Picture an NBAÂ team with the following roster: Dwyane Wade, Kirk Heinrich, Ben Gordon, Ben Wallace, Samuel Dalembert, Andris Biedrins, Damien Wilkins, Mike Miller, Steven Hunter, Shane Battier, Eddie Griffin, Daniel Ewing.Â What do you think would happen with a team like this?

People seem to put more credibility to pretty faces, don’t you think?Â Like, if Jamie King claimed Terry Crews was stalking her and the latter insisted that he doesn’t even come within ten feet of her, who would you believe? (Got this one from LN)

Okay, combine this item with the one above and slightly sharper minds would conclude that one of the things I did during the break was chug that Wayans riot-fest White Chicks.Â One of the little but good things that came out of that heap of comedic mess (that made of roffle just the same) was doing away with image stereotypes.Â I’m talking about Latrell Spencer (played by Crews), a burly hoopster brutha who couldn’t shoot a three-pointer to save his life, singing along with the cutesy teen-pop Vanessa Carlton song A Thousand Miles.Â Like, we really could learn from this bit of gag: if you like a song, don’t pretend to get all goose-bumpy just because the song is Hello Kitty pink and you’re a boyz-in-da-hood wannabe.Â Be true to yourself.

Conversely, I despise Pinoy Big Brother in all its mundanely gimmicky, desperately-grovelling-for-viewership forms.Â But I think it’s unfair to label me as a conio Am-boy just because.Â I hate it, period.

BLACK GULAMAN IS DA BOMB!!!

I’m proud to say that when my circle gather round for lunch, Hana’s pastry treats or to feed tigers with dressed chicken, we don’t instinctively talk about or make fun of other people.Â We only talk about and make fun of each other =D (just don’t let anyone sing Lifehouse’s You and Me – that ruins my day completely)

Metal Gear Solid 2: the video game, at one point speaks ofÂ the stereotype role-conflict element that says “Don’t freaking tell me what to do.Â You’re at home base, I’m the one in the field.Â You have no bloody idea what it’s like to be in my place.”Â Trite, but nevertheless true.Â None of us have a right to tell another person what or what not to do when we don’t have the tiniest inkling of what it’s like being in the sameÂ predicament.Â Two things to avoid: (a) being judgmental, and (b) being self-righteous.

“If I could do that to someone I love [drive an axe into the person’s skull], imagine what I can do to someone I hate.” — Tarik.Â From the movie The Jackal.Â Which about sums it all up.Â I care about you, yes.Â But don’t push your luck.

“Lets not kill the Karma, lets not start a fight. Its not worth the drama for a beautiful liar” — Beyonce (this is the answer)

American Idol season 6 is fast turning up to be like season 3: one contestant is poised to win in a landslide the way Fantasia Barino did.Â Melinda Doolittle simply pwns them all, hands down.Â Personally, though, my favorite is Jordin Sparks.Â Not only because she’s a very good singer, but also because she’s perhaps the more adorable AI contestant ever.Â I could only agree wholeheartedly when Paula Abdul described Jordin as a joy magnet.Â Still, the music person in me says Doolittle – to date – outsings her at every turn.Â But what the hell, still nine weeks to go.Â And Ryan Seacrest is also rooting for Jordin, so nyah =)

When your friend is in love, smile.Â Don’t roll your eyes.Â We all fall in love.

Case #1: AlongÂ the Timog-Tomas Morato rotunda, right beside Padi’s Point stood my favorite “Italian” restaurant, Napoli.Â Â A few years ago I had dinner there with my then-fiancee and some friends and naturally, we ordered Puttanesca, among other things.Â Friend A didn’t partake of that sumptuous pasta dish because according to her, she simply doesn’t like it.Â Friend B then remarked “What a weird person.”

Of course, it was meant as a joke – as I’m sure you’d all beÂ thinking how intolerant Friend B was for cracking such an intolerant remark seriously.Â But then, how many times have we seriously thought about other people as “weird” just because they don’t think as we do?

True-to-life story: someone had stopped talking to me simply because I told that person that I don’t watch Pinoy Big Brother.

And another said I’ve got some serious issues justÂ for declaring that The Da Vinci code isn’t good.

How should we reactÂ to people who, upon hearing others express their personal opinions, tell them to keepÂ their opinionsÂ to themselves?

Case #2: Ever encounter someone who’s been cheated on and feels so helpless that all the person could do was talk, just to avoid blowing up?Â How did you react to that person?Â Do you listen to him/her all the while setting a limit on how long you’re going to listen?Â Ever express your disgust for what you perceive as that person’s stubborn refusal to help him/herself?

Or how about someone who’s got a serious liking for another who’s already attached?Â Â Would you nag at that person for being a potential “relationship-wrecker”?Â Or would you assume that the person already knows what’s right and wrong, and so couldn’t do jack about his/her predicament other than pour out his/her frustrations by talking?Â Do you trust your friends this much?

Case #3: Ever had a friend who attempted suicide or did drugs because he/she couldn’t deal with a crisis?Â Do you extend understanding to this person or walk away because he/she didn’t handle the situation the way you would have handled it had you been inÂ that person’sÂ shoes?

Ever land judgment on a personÂ for reacting badly to a situation that you have never experienced yourself?

How many times have you been surprised in eventually finding yourself in a similar predicament and doing the exact same thing that you’ve judged others for doing when they were in that same exact rut?

I’ve been guilty of all three.Â And believe me, the eye-openers have been anything but pleasant.Â In fact, some of them were downright painful.

Ironically, those peopleÂ whose different opinions I didn’t tolerate, those that I’ve called wussies and unethical people simply because they vocalized their feelings, thoseÂ that I’ve criticized for doing stupid things that I so pompously declared I would never do… they’re the ones who stood by meÂ during my times of crisis… whenÂ I committed or cameÂ close to committing the very same things that I bragged I would never, ever be stupid enough or immoral enough to commit.